
	Platform 360, PC, PS3 Genre Shooter Publisher Electronic Arts Developer EA Digital Illusions CE ETA November 2, 2011

Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (360) Review: Battlefield 2 (360) Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3) Review: Homefront (360)
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Battlefield 3

E3 Update: Probably my most disappointing demo for the simple fact I played for exactly 90 seconds.

After listening to the changes and adjustments that DICE were making to the character classes, especially Medic and Assault classes, I anxiously anticipated getting to stand at a demo station and play.

I have played many, many hours of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 well beyond the

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review date, and from what was shown of Battlefield 3 the game was going to be all that and more. But it's difficult to say that with absolute certainty simply because I had less hands-on time with it than the last time I peed thanks to poindexters standing at the demo stations even before the play time started.

Still, based on past experience, I'm really

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looking forward to Battlefield 3's multiplayer experience.

(July 12, 2011)

My most recent Battlefield experience was with Bad Company 2, a game that I played for well over a year. Not the single-player, which didn't take me that long, but the multiplayer that I spent literally days playing. Bad Company 2 had some really good "hooks" that continue to cater to a large audience. Not only were the maps engaging and extremely well designed for push-pull battles, but the destructibility of the urban environments really meant there was no safe corner.

Sniping from a guard tower could quickly be eliminated by a well-place rocket and camping in a building that could collapse made every move a considered one and part of a larger strategy. (Just writing about it makes me want play it again!)

I've seen enough of Battlefield 3 to already be excited about it. It looks noticeably better than Bad Company 2 thanks to improvements to the game engine, called Frostbite 2, which appears to make a mockery of the environmental damage in Bad Company 2. I'm very interested to see how this kind of large scale destruction is integrated into multiplayer levels that will be big enough to accommodate fighter jets. With a 64 player cap on PC I'm looking forward to some really interesting maps, with some balance between dense urban settings and open terrain to really take advantage of the vehicle combat. (On consoles, the player cap is 32 with the map sizes adjusted accordingly.)

A full single-player campaign will also be included. The year is 2014 and enough bad stuff is happening that according to PC Gamer the player will be jetted to "Paris, Tehran, Sulaymaniyah and New York" for various missions. (I had to look this up: Sulaymaniyah is in Iraq.) The Battlefield single-player experience has always seemed like an extended tutorial for the multiplayer mode (with a few laughs thrown in) and DICE hasn't really released enough details to make me think otherwise.

It wouldn't surprise me if Battlefield 3's launch was pushed into 2012, but from what was shown at the recent Game Developer's Conference and videos that have been showing up online, I'm hopeful that the game will hit its November 2, 2011 release date.

- Aaron Simmer

(April 28, 2011)